Feed The Meter

FEED THE METER was formed in 1999. Rolf Sturm, Jody Espina, and Grisha Alexiev had been playing together regularly in Joe Gallant’s Grateful Dead big band, Illuminati and with the addition of one of Rolf’s past collaborators, bassist Randy Landau, FEED THE METER was born. After a handful of rehearsals and a few gigs, their first CD, “VIOLATION” (WSM-112), was recorded and released. FEED THE METER performed throughout the NYC area playing at clubs like The Wetlands (remember The Wetlands?), Desmond’s, Hell’s Kitchen and The Red Bear. VIOLATION received air play on over 200 college and community radio stations, charting on Vermont’s WGDR CMJ top 30.

Randy moved to California and half way through 2000, FEED THE METER went into the studio with bassist Kip Sophos to start recording its second CD for Water Street Music. Most of the initial tracks were recorded within three days. Things seemed on target for a late 2000/early 2001 release of this new recording.

It was about this time when Rolf started touring Germany with klezmer clarinetist, Giora Feidman… and then Rolf and Grisha began working regularly in the Tony Trischka Band… both of which put FEED THE METER on a bit of a hiatus. Slowly over the next four years (yes, four!), this second FEED THE METER recording was finished.

FEED THE METER has now swung around to the front burner and is starting to play out again to support their new release, appropriately titled: “ITS ABOUT TIME!”.

Whether at gigs or in the studio, FEED THE METER plays all types of grooves and songs back to back… a “fifty-two card pick-up” set for the attention deficit aficionado.

FEED THE METER’s second recording explores all angles of the roller coaster known as “human relationships”. Each of these 13 songs has been given its own genre treatment, no need to hit “random”, the surfing is built in!